A great variety of different types of content, such as video and music, is available through diverse content delivery systems including cable, satellite, broadcast television systems, the Internet, and satellite radio systems. The content delivery systems typically provide their users with the content through media channels, such as pay per view cable offerings, television channels, radio stations, and Internet web sites. Media channels may provide content by carrying a number of different media, such as video programming (e.g., broadcast television programming, on-demand video programming), audio programming (e.g., music channels, audio-on-demand programming), and interactive applications (e.g., games and shopping applications). In view of the myriad of various content delivery systems, media channels and the vast amounts and types of content offered to users, efforts have developed to organize the content offerings for the users. Programming guidance applications, including program guides, are one such effort. They provide an interface which organizes information associated with the content, such as media listings and subject matter descriptions, to better enable access to the media content from content sources and distribution systems.
An electronic program guide (EPG) is a common type of programming guidance application. It is typically implemented through a user set-top box and allows users to view program listings for multiple television and/or cable network channels. Commonly, users of an EPG search and sort program listings by genre (e.g., movies, sports, etc.), sub-genre (e.g., movies that are drama, comedy or non-fiction) or by title (e.g., alphabetically).
EPGs generally do not extent beyond television programming. However, in recent years there has been an advent of multiple different types of platforms for accessing content. Different types of platforms include personal digital assistants, personal media players, cellular phones, personal computers, gaming platforms.
Given the variety of platforms, content sources and content types, and with so much content now available which is distributed through different media channels, this places a burden upon a user to make selections of content which are relevant to their interests. This burden is especially acute when the user has limited time available, prior to making the content selection, for selecting relevant content for enjoyment. The user must expend considerable effort locating the desired content from among various available sources and then considering factors such as a given length of time or a specific time frame for using the content. Furthermore, the user has the added burden of needing to be informed regarding the subject matter of the available content prior to making any content selections which would be relevant to their goal.